Knight pledges $5 million to community news projects

Received this word today:

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today launched the Knight Brothers 21st Century News Challenge, investing as much as $5 million in its first year in community news projects that best use the digital world to connect people to the real world.

The News Challenge is looking to fund new ideas, prototypes, products and leadership initiatives that use innovative news methods to help citizens better connect within their communities.

The competition is open to anyone, not just the journalism community.

“News and information are the glue that binds communities. We want to help today’s high-tech news do in the 21st century what the Knight brothers’ newspapers did this past century,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president of Knight Foundation. ...

If the quality of entries warrant it, the foundation may spend as much as $25 million during the next five years in the search for bold community news experiments.

“We’d like to encourage the newest ways for people to pursue a great American tradition: the fair, accurate, contextual search for the truth,” said Eric Newton, Knight’s director of Journalism Initiatives. “We want to help the citizens of this new century get the news they need to run their governments and their lives.’

The Challenge web site, with an online application form, is at www.newschallenge.org. The competition will accept applications through Dec. 31, and expects to begin announcing winners in the spring of 2007.

Gary Kebbel at the Knight Foundation told me about this a few weeks ago. Exciting!